foods

i used to eat cracklin oat bran with strawberries. the sweetness of the cerel goes perfectly with the berries. sometimes i'll add mixed berries. i used to eat it with walnuts but its good without the nuts and alot less fattening.



but this morning i added raisins. yum. it added some extra sweetness.


oh and i meant to show you the dinner i made the other night :) chicken empanizado with rice and beans and platano maduro. yummo.

WARNING TO ALL BRIDES!!!!

do NOT use Carlos Cuba (Photography by Carlos) in Miami, FL. i had a HORRIBLE experience with this guy. i had heard so many horror stories from brides about asshole photographers and i was trying really hard to find a guy i really liked. my sister and mom referred me to Carlos because he had taken pictures at my sister's friend's wedding. they said he took lots of candid shots which is what i was looking for. i went to his place and we met him and looked at his stuff. his prices were a lot more than i wanted to pay...or could really afford. but he seemed to understand what i was looking for, he seemed nice enough and i liked his work. so i splurged, big time.

i get in to town a couple weeks before the wedding (the wedding was in miami and i was living in boston) and get in touch with the Carlos, or try to, to set up the engagement session. we had set it up for a specific date while i was still in boston. i call him the day before and he didn't even remember so we rescheduled for another day. then the day we were supposed to do it my mom drove my fiance and i to the spot and we wait and wait. he's not there. we call him and he flaked again. he gave us some excuse about it being a cloudy or rainy day and assumed we canceled it but he never bothered to get in touch with us to confirm. why would you just assume the bride would cancel the photo session??? how unprofessional is that? my mom thankfully brought her own camera and we were able to take some of our own pictures. finally about 30 min later this guy shows up. obviously just ran out of the house. the whole thing seemed very half assed. the poses he was putting us in sucked. i was SO not impressed and frankly he was pissing me off with his flakiness. Is this what I'm paying all this money for??

the absolute LAST straw was on the wedding day. we arrived at the reception hall (ceremony and reception at the same place) and the photographer was nowhere to be found. finally right before the ceremony some other photographer which i had NEVER met came up to me and tells me that Carlos had some kind of emergency with his father and couldn't make it. at first i was really pissed. this was just the last straw in a string of disappointments. but hey it was a family emergency so its not his fault. and at least he sent a replacement. but this new guy was kind of an ass, i didn't like him. I didn't like how many posed pictures he was taking. i wanted candid shots. at one point i had to actually say can we just take a silly one? sheesh. and he was very rude and aggressive. i wanted a photographer who would follow us around and take candid shots of the night, not someone who was gonna order us around and interrupt us while we were trying to talk to family and order us to hurry and pose for another picture. i mean, that's what i was paying nearly 3 grand for. not this.

after the wedding i was upset. the more i thought about it the more upset i got. when i saw the proofs from the wedding i was disappointed. they were NOT what i wanted. there was like 20 pictures of family (a lot of them overlapping family members) posing in the same spot in the same position. ugh. god. everytime i think about this i get so mad. then Carlos took over 3 months to finally send me my wedding album. i would call him and he wouldn't' call me back. ugh. and the thing that pisses me off is that after all the crap he put me through i still ended up paying almost $3,000! and for what?!! i did NOT get what i paid for. I paid for Carlos to take candid shots. I didn't get Carlos, I didn't get candid shots. I was paying for HIS work. not the work of some photographer I've never met. I wouldn't have paid that price for his crappy work. its BULLSHIT. the least he could have done was give me a discount for not taking the pictures at the wedding. its been over a year now and i still get so incredibly upset everytime i think about it. its a moment in time i can NEVER get back. i feel so cheated. more than the money, i feel cheated out of the memories i wanted to keep. memories of all the candid moments i'll never get back. i even thought about taking him to court but it just wasn't worth the hassle and the money. i'll never get those moments back.

the only thing i can do is share my experience with other brides and warn you NOT to use CARLOS CUBA. this guy thinks he got off scott free without any repercussions. i'm sure he never gave it a second thought. as long as he got his money he was fine. he doesn't care about brides. please find someone who will actually care about you and your wishes. i don't want anyone to have the same horrible experience i had.

DON'T USE CARLOS CUBA OR PHOTOGRAPHY BY CARLOS in Miami, FL.

things i wish i could have

- a puppy or a kitty to love and care for

- nutritional, perfectly portioned meals delivered to my home (preferably by a personal chef but i would take something like nutrisystem)

-hypnotism. i want to get hypnotized to want to work out every day. supposedly thats what lily allen did and look at her. but i question whether it will work because my dad got hypnotized once and he's still struggling with weight.


anyway..those are the 3 things i wish i could have. but will never have. reasons being: no pets allowed here and no money for the other stuff.

Halloween pics

FIRST OFF YAY FOR THE RED SOX MAKING IT TO THE WORLD SERIES!!!! WOOHOOOOO!!!!




ok now onto the halloween stuff. friday night we went to a halloween party. what a blast. we took a buttload of pics.

Dinner Talk

Yesterday I went grocery shopping and found this whole chicken completely seasonsed and stuff with veggies. It was only like $6! So I was like this is dinner!

I decided to buy some potatoes and make mashed potatoes from scratch! hehe. I also toasted some cuban bread. here are the pics.









And this is what I had for breakfast today. Yum!

biological clock goes "tick tick tick"

usually when i think of having a kid i think of babies. which was a clear sign that i'm not ready to have kids. because i was so not interested in anything after the baby stage. but lately i've been thinking about 3 and 4 yr olds. i had a dream i had a son around that age. and i was just in awe of him. and i learned so much from him. then in a flash he was a grown man. college aged. he was a big handsome boy, very tall and strong and he was very loyal to me. he was a mama's boy. i loved it :)

then today i dreamt about having a kid between 8 and 10. and just talking to them and teaching them things. trying to be a good mom. and hear them out. not talking at them but talking to them. trying to instill certain things in them to keep the safe. i also thought about what i can do so that they can come to me with their problems and tell me about their lives. i don't want to have the relationship that i had with my mom. i think, because of the way she was raised, that she was unable to show her emotions very well. there were lots of things that just weren't talked about. i want to be more open with my kids. and listen to them more and not judge them. which is easier said than done. we all know that we resort back to the way we were brought up. we never want to become our mothers, but we always do. but thank god for ed. he's my rock. i'm so glad i get to raise children with him. he's gonna be an amazing parent i know he will raise a remarkable child.

i even thought about when the kid goes off to college which one of us would take him/her and get them set up.

so if i'm thinking like this maybe it shows growth. maybe i'm maturing. now i look at kids and instead of just thinking "aww how cute" i think i want to give them so much love.

how funny. me and the girls were at a playground today talking about kids. and i was saying how i dread the thought of trick or treating with my kids or having to take them to disney because its such a hassle. ugh what a pain in the ass. but then we saw this really adorable little 2 or 3 yr old playing by himself in the playground and my heart just melted. i said "ok, i'll take them to disneyworld". :)

on a totally diff subject, today i felt the urge to go for a walk in the park or have a picnic. we ended up going to a fancy sandwich shop. i was dissappointed because they didn't have any fruit. i was jonzing for something cool and refreshing. instead i ended up with something hot and melty. so when i came home i stopped at the store for some fruit. then went i got home i was thirsty. i drank water (yes water!! and ate fruit). my body must have really been craving it.

anyway this is what i had for dinner. let me just say i've been eating JUNK for like 2 weeks straight and i'm sooooo sick of it. i need a detox. this was my dinner.

it was an egg and cheese sandwich, a bowl of cracklin oat bran with berries and an IBC black cherry soda. :) yum!

Talk about getting creative

So...you may have read that I did zero groceries this week. bad housewife! so we've been eating out for every meal this weekend. except today. i made breakfast this morning. but come dinner time i see that i have no meat. so...whats left to make? pasta and sauce. thats about it. so i took my rotini (corkscrew; like fusilli) pasta and popped it into boiling water. since i still have mozzarella cheese and sauce left over from the pizza i decided to make some kind of melted cheese baked pasta deal.

so i got a pyrex dish, added the sauce, the cooked pasta, and topped it off with the shredded mozzarella and a sprinkle of oregano. i also got some regular white bread and added some margarine and mushed garlic and popped it into the toaster oven. i suggest you use garlic powder or garlic salt instead of actual garlic. but i was all out of those so i used the real thing. if you're gonna use actual garlic i suggest you scrape the garlic off when its done toasting so you have the flavor of garlic without actually biting into a big chunk of it.

and here are some pics. ed was pleasantly surprised. it was like kinda like lasagna.

before


after

with bread